I love a good HFY / Humans Are Space Orks post, and I think one element of Humans we’re sleeping on is an instinctual understanding of ballistics.
I mean, I get why it’s not as popular here on Tumblr dot com, given it’s kinda a jock/military adjacent thing, but like. Our ability to just. Pick up a small, firm object, judge its internal inertia and mass by holding it for a bit, and then flinging it with the kind of accuracy and speed Humans are capable of is.
Like there’s another post about how Humans in an alien zoo would probably be breaking out constantly, since we consider escape rooms to be a fun courtship ritual, but
imagine the aliens who are designing the enclosures just so happen to pick up, say, a devoted amateur baseball pitcher. Not even a legend by any means, just somebody who’s practiced with intention. And one day they’re watching her pass some time and blow off some steam by doing some pitching practice and they realize to their mounting horror that this gal can turn literally anything she can wrap her digits around into a ballistic weapon.
fun fact humans can throw as hard and fast as an adult chimp, as preteens. chimps can mop the floor with any given soldier in agility and destructive force, but their shoulders just aren't right for throwing things, so they can't use their strength effectively for propulsion. humans have funky shaped shoulder blades that let us retain the flexibility of a socket joint while also, at need, locking the arm into the core stability of a bipedal torso. good pitchers throw with their entire bodies, one fluid whip from thigh to hip to shoulder and out through the arm, maximum leverage, and all other primates just can't lock together right for that perfect twisting lash, and rely on the gravitational assistance of 'being up a tree' to hurl a projectile. humans get to briefly turn into their own trees.
